Did you know that Thanksgiving may not have happened if a group a Franciscan monks hadn’t rescued Squanto from the slave trade? Yes, it was an returned act of kindness that resounds through history even to his day. Squanto, the Native American that led the effort to help the Pilgrims starving before winter, already met a group of Franciscan monks that freed him from slavery. You could say he was returning the favor.
Showing posts with label Thanksgiving. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Thanksgiving. Show all posts
How Catholic Squanto Saved the Pilgrims at Thanksgiving
The first Thanksgiving in America was a Catholic Mass
Did you know that the first “thanksgiving” meal in the United States was not celebrated by the Pilgrims in Plymouth, but by Spanish settlers, in what became Florida? And that first “Thanksgiving” was Eucharistic!continue at Aleteia
Historian Dr. Michael Gannon narrates the events that took place on September 8, 1565.
“When the first Spanish settlers landed in what is now St. Augustine on September 8, 1565, to build a settlement, their first act was to hold a religious service to thank God for the safe arrival of the Spanish fleet… After the Mass, Father Francisco Lopez, the Chaplin of the Spanish ships and the first pastor of St. Augustine, stipulated that the natives from the Timucua tribe be fed along with the Spanish settlers, including Don Pedro Menendez de Aviles, the leader of the expedition. It was the very first Thanksgiving and the first Thanksgiving meal in the United States.”
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TM: 6 Amazing Catholic Thanksgiving Facts You Need to Know
When you’re sitting down for that wonderful feast on Thursday, here are 6 interesting Catholic Thanksgiving Facts you can share with your family. Print them out and read them aloud over some pumpkin (or pecan) pie!continue at Taylor Marshall
Your history teacher probably forgot to teach you that Squanto, the native American hero of the Pilgrim’s first Thanksgiving was Catholic. And your history textbooks probably wrongly told you that the first Thanksgiving was celebrated by the Protestant pilgrims of Massachusetts in 1621. Not so. There was the Catholic Thanksgiving of 1565 in Florida and another Catholic Thanksgiving of 1589 in Texas. Read on for 6 Amazing Catholic Thanksgiving Facts…
1. Squanto, the beloved hero of Thanksgiving at Plymouth Rock, was Catholic! (Here’s my short video on how Catholic Squanto saved Thanksgiving.) Squanto had been enslaved by the English but he was freed by Spanish Franciscans. Squanto thus received baptism and became a Catholic. So it was a baptized Catholic Native American who orchestrated what became known as Thanksgiving. Please take a moment to watch the video below as I explain the story behind the first Thanksgiving and what a group of Franciscan friars did to make it happen.
Mickie's Dairy Bar in Madison, WI
As a college freshman back in 2002, I decided that it would be a good idea to stay up all night the Tuesday of Thanksgiving week goofing around with my friends. Given the long weekend approaching, I rightly figured it wouldn't be too hard to go to my Wednesday classes on no sleep knowing that in a few hours I'd be on my way home for the holiday. This stupid idea was known as "All Night Party."
That tradition was repeated the following year as a sophomore. As was my custom, I caught the last running bus from Laura's dorm to mine at 2 a.m. (Note: My, how times have changed. The only thing that could possible have me awake at 2 a.m. now is a teething baby.) Upon my return, All Night Party was repeated as a couple of buddies came over to play Tecmo Bowl the rest of the night.
But sometime before I arrived back, Scott from across the hall placed a note on my door telling me that he and some friends were going out for breakfast at a local place called Mickie's Dairy Bar, and I was welcome to join them. Strangely, the note said the restaurant was super popular so we needed to get there early. In fact there would probably be a line at the door. We'd meet at 5:40.
Normally, I'd balk at such a ridiculous time, but I wasn't going to bed anyway. So when I heard Scott arise at around five, I leaped up from my Tecmo Bowl game to tell him I was in for breakfast.
Scott--still shaking off the cobwebs at that early hour--looked at me. He looked in my room (full of people, lights on and music going). Then he looked at me again and said, "You haven't been to bed yet, have you?"
Guilty as charged.
We piled in a friend's car and headed for Mickie's. There was no line out the door so we waited in the dark and cold alone. Getting a little delirious due to the lack of sleep, I began to slide around on a patch of ice as though I had ice skates on. When the sun rose shortly before the restaurant's 6 a.m. opening, it revealed I was sliding on a pile of frozen vomit. (Later that day, I found the only thing that could rid my shoes of the stench was a strongly scented shampoo I'd been using.)
Anyway, breakfast was great, so we repeated the trip the next year. Fortunately, there was no vomit involved this time. But as we left Mickie's, a I decided to "raise the roof" to a school bus as it drove by. About 70 kids raised the roof in unison right back at me. You're going to just have to take my word as to how awesome a sight it was.
Each year, we've continued the day-before-Thanksgiving trip to Mickie's (which I used to describe as "like Thanksgiving, but with better food--and people). Some of the folks who came with in the early years left town after school. I think Scott is still in Madison, but I haven't seen him since we finished school back in 2006. And the annual breakfast was interrupted for a year when I lived in Chicago.
But there's a core of three of us that still return--year-after-year--to re-ignite the tradition. We're now accompanied by our wives and a total of five kids. And last week marked the 10th annual Thanksgiving Wednesday Mickie's trip. I sort of hope that in 2053, we'll be on some local morning TV news story about the three college buddies that have had breakfast at the same place every year for half a century.
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| Now that we all have kids, it's pretty impossible to snap a decent picture. |
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| I'm a sucker for a good bacon, egg and cheese breakfast sandwich. Oh yeah, and that's a chocolate malt on the side. |
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| My buddy Adam enjoys a man's breakfast. |
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| The prices from the 1950s. |
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| Here's the menu. |
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| Mickie's Dairy Bar has...an actual bar. |
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| True fact: Bucky Badger used to have a lady friend named Becky Badger (pictured here). She was exiled when students got angry thinking it was Bucky in drag. |
Squanto, the Catholic Hero of the Thanksgiving
continue at Taylor MarshallDo you remember Squanto, the Native American who assisted the Puritan Pilgrims at the “first Thanksgiving”?
Well, Squanto, our beloved hero of Thanksgiving, was Catholic!
His true name was Tisquantum, yet he is affectionately known to us as “Squanto.”
In 1614, Squanto was captured by a lieutenant of John Smith (remember? from Pocahontas). This shameful lieutenant attempted to sell Squanto and other Native Americans into slavery via Spain. However, some Franciscan friars discovered the plot and acquired the captured Native Americans, Squanto included. During this time, Squanto received instruction in the Catholic Faith and received holy baptism.
As a freeman, Squanto traveled to London where became a laborer in the shipyards. Here he became fluent in English. Eventually, Squanto was able to return to his Native Land, New England, in 1619 – five years after he had been kidnapped. He returned only to discover that his people were being decimated by the recently imported European diseases.
Since he was fluent in English, Squanto became well-known and valuable to the new English Pilgrims settled at Plymouth. As an English speaker, Squanto taught the Pilgrims how to fertilize the ground, grow corn, and the best places to catch fish.
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